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Published on July 9, 2007

"How can CAT change its mind by refusing to honour our joint agreement? We'll ask the board to make a decision on Tuesday what to do next," TOT director Djitt Laowattana said last week.

The CAT-TOT joint executive committee reached a deal on June 4 for CAT to pay TOT the overdue access fees of Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move, then seek compensation from both of its concession holders.

But early last week CAT's board resolved that CAT would not do anything until the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) replies to CAT's question on whether the access charge and interconnection charge are the same thing.

The access charge is what DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone - all on CAT concessions - pay TOT for connecting their calls to other networks via TOT's facilities. TOT was earning Bt14 billion in access charges per year.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying TOT the access charge last November and have instead paid it the interconnection fee as per the NTC's interconnection regulations.

An industry observer said the conflict between TOT's access charge regulations and the NTC's interconnection charge regulations looked like it would not end anytime soon.

Recently CAT consulted with the NTC on the possible financial impact from the overdue access fees of DTAC and True Move.

The NTC responded by consulting with both the Information and Communications Technology Ministry, which oversees TOT's and CAT's policies, and the Finance Ministry, which owns 100 per cent of both state agencies.

The ICT Ministry said it was beyond its authority to make the decision, while the Finance Ministry has yet to give its answer to the NTC.

TOT is not free from any regulatory risk. The NTC is considering punishing TOT for disobeying its order to enter into negotiations with DTAC to strike an interconnection agreement.